Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!PT.CS.CMU.EDU!andrew.cmu.edu!cfe+
From: cfe+@andrew.cmu.edu (Craig F. Everhart)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: Are underbars considered bad form for addresses in RFC822 headers?
Message-ID: <EWJuRHy00VsL00fHEK@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 4 Apr 88 15:10:11 GMT
References: <4289@hoptoad.uucp>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University
Lines: 17
In-Reply-To: <4289@hoptoad.uucp>


RFC822 treats ``_'', and several other several punctuation characters, in
exactly the same way as it treats, say, alphabetics.  These include:
        !#$%&'*+-/=?^_`{|}~

As to whether a particular mail system will recognize mail addressed to
Firstname_Lastname (or, for that matter, ``Firstname.Lastname''), that's up to
the particular mail system.  Andrew.cmu.edu, for instance, will get mail to me
no matter whether it's addressed as any of the following:
        Craig.Everhart@andrew.cmu.edu
        Craig_Everhart@andrew.cmu.edu
        Craig_F._Everhart@andrew.cmu.edu
        cfe+@andrew.cmu.edu
plus a bunch of less-reliable alternatives that presume the absence of
conflicting names, e.g.:
        cfe@andrew.cmu.edu
        Creg.Everhart@andrew.cmu.edu
        c.f.everhart@andrew.cmu.edu